Tuesday, January 19, 2016

On being boring

You never realize how boring your life is until you start a blog and open a Twitter account. Suddenly, the realization that your life revolves around doing laundry, cooking the same four meals over and over and over again, and sitting on the couch watching Netflix while knitting.

I have a “real job” but it is a ‘summers only’ job. Mind you, I work the same number of hours that a normal, full time employed person works, I just work them all in the summer. And since I’ve signed confidentiality agreements for work, I can’t tell you much about it. Well, that and the fact that when you work twelve months’ worth of hours in seven months, there’s not a lot of time for non-work exciting things to happen.

It doesn’t help that I’m a creature of habit. I tend to read the same genres of books over & over again. I knit the same style things over and over again. I have a small group of favorite, affordable yarns that I knit with over and over again. I shop in the same four stores over and over again. Actually, I don’t even like shopping, except of course for yarn and books. I don’t shoe or purse shop like most girls. I find an item I like and I wear/use it until it disintegrates. I’ve been wearing the same pair of shoes for four years. I did recently have to buy a new purse, but the old one was three years old and in pretty bad shape. My car has over 200,000 miles on it and the car before that had 380,000 miles on it. I find something I like and I stick with it, which can be pretty boring. While friends are “finishing” Google, I’m over hear obsessively checking the six bloggers that I stalk follow to see if they’ve published an update. Hell, even my clothes are boring and habitual. My idea of risky dressing is wearing the purple sweatshirt instead of the gray.

Part of me likes the rut I’ve dug for myself. It’s comfortable down in here. It’s safe and warm & cuddly. Well, maybe not cuddly. I’m not sure a rut can cuddle, but it’s definitely safe and warm and fairly drama free. But it’s awfully boring. And I’m sick of being boring. I want to be fascinating.

So what am I going to do about it? How am I going to become fascinating?

My first thought was to challenge myself to doing or using something or going some place different each day. Every single day, do something different. Something new and different that I’ve never done before.

But something new and different that I’ve never done before could get expensive and I am on a pretty tight budget. Bankruptcy does not need to be one of the new things I try. Plus, I want to challenge myself to stick with the plan for an entire year. During the summer, when I’m working 90 hours a day (or at least that what it feels like some days) I won’t have time for something new in my life every day. Plus, the idea of something new every day terrifies me. Absolutely terrifies me! I know, I know. Climbing out of the rut will be scary, but the idea of scaring myself on a daily basis is just too scary. Both mentally & financially.

So, I hereby challenge myself to do something different once a week. It doesn’t have to be a big, giant different thing, but for the remainder of 2016, I will do something different at least once a week. And to keep myself accountable, I’ll tell you about it on, let’s say.... Fridays. And we’ll call the project Fascinating Friday.

Minnie

Minnie says, "I'm bored." Got any suggestions for new, fun, fascinating things for us to try?

2 comments:

Start with the things you like and branch out. Find a different genre of books to read. Or try a new knitting shop or a new yarn. As you make those little forays into new and exciting you will feel more comfortable with things like bungee jumping or belly dancing!

LOL, I'm not sure if I should laugh or hide in fear from the mental image of me belly dancing. That is just a really, really scary image. As for bungee jumping, that would be a Hell NO! But the yarn shopping... I can see that in my future.